


All Her Love

by fightforyourwrite



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Children, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, POV First Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 10:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11507868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightforyourwrite/pseuds/fightforyourwrite
Summary: Everything Jean Kirschtein knows, he knows from his Ma.





	All Her Love

**Author's Note:**

> I've been on a roll with writing stories from the first-person perspective. I already did Historia and Mikasa, now Jean's up to bat. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Today it’s Wednesday and today it’s also March. Wednesday comes after Tuesday and March comes after February.

After February and March comes April.

April is an important time for me and Ma because April is the month that has our birthdays.

My Birthday comes before Ma’s. Mine is on the seventh and hers is on the twenty-eighth.

I wonder how special this birthday is going to be, because when April seventh comes, I will be six.

I’m five now, before that I was four, then before that even more I was three, then I was two, and then I was one.

Then before I was one, I was a bump in Ma’s tummy. I was so small that she didn’t realize I was with her until it was a little bigger. Then I came out and now I’m here.

Ma isn’t happy on this Wednesday. She hasn’t been happy in the days before too.

On this Wednesday, Grandma and Grandpa are coming over to our home.

It’s a big journey for them. Ma says that Grandma and Grandpa live all the way in another place. It’s so far from Trost that they have to take a horse cart to get here.

Grandma and Grandpa usually bring things when they come over. Today, they bring me and Ma something called honey. It’s this gold inside a jar that feels sticky when you touch it. But when you taste it, it’s very sweet.

I don’t get to taste honey a lot. Grandma says I have to be careful with this jar of honey so that me and Ma can have it for a long time.

Ma uses the honey when she and Grandpa cook dinner for tonight. She says that it will make her cake taste better, but we’ll still have enough for the both of us later.

Ma doesn’t like seeing Grandma and Grandpa. I think I know why.

Every time they come over, they start talking. Then their voices get louder and then they start yelling.

Whenever they yell, Ma tells me to go wait in my room.

Sometimes I do that. I go to my room, lie on my bed, and then wait until it’s over. I’m usually asleep before it is.

But I don’t want to do that this time. If I’m going to be six, then I need to be braver. I shouldn’t hide when Ma, Grandma, and Grandpa start to yell.

On this Wednesday, I’m not in my room. I’m waiting at the staircase of our home, near the top.

We had dinner all together. Grandpa and Ma cooked food while Grandma spent time with me.

I showed Grandma all of my drawings. I’m not that good with words or numbers, but I can draw good. We don’t have a lot of paper, but I draw when I’m allowed.

I can draw a lot of things. I can draw cats, dogs, houses, Ma, the sky, and Grandma and Grandpa.

I show Grandma every drawing I have and hope that she likes them. I don’t know if she really does, but she doesn’t seem upset after I showed her everything.

It’s hard spending time with Grandma. I don’t like talking to Grandma. Same goes with Grandpa. I try talking to her, but I’m scared to. There’s something in my throat that makes it hard for words to come out of my mouth.

The only person in this world I can talk to is Ma. When I’m with her, the words come out fine and she understands me. But if I’m talking to anyone else, Grandma and Grandpa, kids at school, teachers, I can’t say a single thing.

I don’t know why.

It was quiet at dinner. Grandpa and Ma made something with fish in it. I’ve never had it before. It’s not like Ma’s om-oms, it feels different to chew. But I think I can get used to fish.

Ma also gave us the cake she made with honey. She was right about it tasting better, because the cake is sweeter when there’s honey in it. I wonder if Ma can make this cake again for my birthday.

When dinner was over, Ma told me to go to my room and sleep because she needed to talk with Grandma and Grandpa.

I tried to do that, I really did, but I could hear Ma, Grandma, and Grandpa from all the way in my bed. Their voices were loud. I couldn’t stop myself from hearing them.

So I sit at the top of the staircase, because I can’t sleep and all the voices are too loud.

I can hear everything from where I am.

I’m not sure what they’re yelling about this time. I can never understand what their talking about, only that what they’re talking about makes them all very upset.

I can hear Grandma’s voice.

_“Aren’t you worried about him? You act like him not speaking to other kids is a good thing. It’s not. It means that there’s something wrong with him. If you cared about Jean, you’d send him to a specialist or something.”_

And then Ma’s voice.

_“Quit pushing, Mother! If you’re going to be like this, then I don’t want you helping me.”_

Then Grandma again.

 _“I’m not talking about helping you, I’m talking about helping_ **_him_ ** _. Don’t you want Jean to have a good life? For crying out loud, you’re living in this ratshack of a house with no man around. No wonder he’s a mess.”_

Then I hear Grandpa speaking up.

_“Gabrielle, give it a rest. She’s never going to give him up. If our daughter wants to take care of her bastard child, then so be it. It’s not like we’ve been able to stop her before.”_

_“Why don’t you try calling him your grandson, Father?”_ Ma says to Grandpa.

 _“I…”_ Grandpa starts, but then he stops, like talking has become hard for him. _“You know I’m trying.”_

 _“It’s been five years but you still can’t call your own grandson by his name,”_ Ma says. I hear her scoffing. She does that when she’s mad. It means that Grandpa’s in trouble. _“You’re pathetic.”_

Grandma speaks next, _“Let it go, Arielle. It took him four years to even look him in the eye.”_

 _“Just say his name, Father,”_ Ma says. Her voice is getting louder, but it’s starting to sound like she’s tired too. _“Just say his_ **_fucking_ ** _name.”_

Ma said a bad word. She says that bad words are only to be used when things get difficult.

There’s silence after she says that word. I don’t hear anything for a few moments.

But soon, Grandpa finds the power to start speaking again, _“You’re not afraid that he’ll turn out like his father?”_

 _“Jean is everything I have,”_ Ma says. _“Before him, I had nothing.”_

 _“And what do you have now?”_ Grandpa says. _“A family? You had one before. You had me and your mother, but you left it all behind to chase some guy all the way to this stupid city. If this boy is anything like his father, he’ll drop you the first chance he gets.”_

_“Shut up, Dad.”_

_“You know it’s true.”_

**“** **_**I** SAID SHUT UP._ ** **”**

I hear a dish shattering.

 _“Don’t use that tone with me,”_ Grandpa says.

 _“I’ll use whatever tone I want. You’re in_ **_my_ ** _house. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”_

 _“She’s right, Amos,”_ Grandma says. _“We’ve clearly overstayed our welcome. We should be going.”_

Silence follows again. I come down the stairs just a little bit. I peep from behind the bars on the stairs and look out to the living room and kitchen.

There are pieces of broken plate on the floor. Ma is kneeling down to clean them up. Grandma and Grandpa are grabbing their coats. They put them on and then they open the front door.

Grandma doesn’t see me, but Grandpa does.

He always look at me strangely. He doesn’t smile a lot, or at least, he doesn’t smile at me. His lips are pressed like a straight line as he buttons up his coat.

Without a word, Grandma and Grandpa head out.

Then they’re both gone.

I don’t know why Grandma and Grandpa don’t think that Ma has a family.

I know what the word family means. I know a lot of words.

Ma is my family.

Before Ma had me, she was all alone. She had lost all her love and had nothing else in her life.

Then I started to grow inside of her tummy. I was so small that she didn’t know I was even there until I got a little bigger.

Then when she realized it was me, she became scared.

But when I finally came out, Ma said that she cried. But not because she was sad, but because she was happy.

Ma said that she was so happy that she wouldn’t be lonely anymore.

The idea of me scared her, but the real me didn’t. There’s nothing about me to be afraid of.

I wonder if the sky gave me to her, because the sky is huge and big and it’s able to give things to the world like lightning, clouds, and rain.

Or maybe the Walls gave me to her instead. The Walls are huge and big too.

When Grandma and Grandpa are gone, I hide back in my room. I get into my bed and pull the blankets over me.

I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. I know it’s Ma. I’m usually asleep at this time of night, but I’m not this time. I’m all awake.

I think that she’s heading to my room, but my doorknob doesn’t rattle. Instead, her footsteps start to fade and move away.

The door of her room slams and the sound of footsteps stop.

I want to talk to Ma. It doesn’t have to be about what she said to Grandma and Grandpa. It can be just talking.

We used to talk all the time. Ma used to have nothing to do all day but talk to me. She says that it was important that I came to her, because it meant that she finally had a friend to talk to.

I grab one of the pictures I showed to Grandma after I get off my bed and walk to the door. I open the door and go across the hall, all the way to Ma’s room.

I turn the knob on her door and open it just a little bit. From where I am, I can see Ma inside. She’s on her bed, but she’s not moving. She’s breathing, but she’s staying very still.

I walk into the bedroom.

“Ma?”

Ma sits up and is surprised to see me.

“Jean? What are you doing?” She hangs her legs off the edge of the bed, “It’s too late to be up, what are you doing here?”

“I can’t sleep,” I tell her. I come to her bed and climb on it.

Before we came into this house, we lived somewhere else. When I was in Ma’s tummy, she lived in a big place with a bunch of other people.

I remember living in that place too. We stayed there for a while after I came to her.

We had a room for just me and Ma. It was very small. The room was so small that me and Ma couldn’t have beds for ourselves. Instead, we had to share the same one.

We didn’t have our own bathroom either. We had to share it with the other people who lived in the house.

When I got big, Ma realized that I was too big to stay in our room anymore. So she found a place for us and took me and her out of there.

I get onto Ma’s bed. I play in the blankets. Hers are more scratchy than mine, but I like them.

“I wanted to show you what I showed Grandma,” I say to Ma. I hand her the drawing I made. “It’s of Grandma and Grandpa. Is it good?”

Ma looks at my drawing for a second and starts to smile, “It’s beautiful, Jean. Let’s hang it up in the morning.”

She puts the drawing away and says, “You should be sleeping though, Jeannie. You’re a growing boy. You need your rest.”

“I don’t want to rest,” I say. “I want to be here with you. My room is too lonely.”

“Your room is fine,” Ma says.

“But it’s boring. Can I stay here for a while? Please? Just for a little bit.”

Ma huffs. She puts her hand on her forehead and shakes her head. Then she starts to laugh.

“Okay. But only for tonight.”

I smile at her and start jumping on her bed. She tells me not to jump because I’ll fall and break my neck, but that won’t happen when she’s here. I’m not scared of jumping because if I fall, Ma will catch me.

“You’re a hyper boy. Must be the honey,” Ma says. She smiles grabs onto my shoulders. She stops me from jumping and sits me down. She kneels on the bed too.

“Tell me, Jeannie, did you show Grandma anything else?”

“I showed Grandma all my drawings,” I say. “But I wanted to show her the one of her and Grandpa the most.”

“Looks like you had a really good time with her,” Ma says. She’s still smiling at me.

“I hope so. She didn’t seem too happy though. She didn’t smile,” I tell Ma.

“Well… Grandma will do that. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Ma, can we get a dog one day?”

“Jeannie, we can’t get a dog, our house is too small,” Ma explains.

“A cat then. Or a rat.”

“We already have enough rats here,” Ma says.

I nod at her, “I know. That’s what Grandma said.”

Ma doesn’t respond with talking. She looks at me with her lips in a straight line, just like Grandpa’s was.

She’s not talking, but soon, she speaks up.

“Jean… did you overhear anything just then?”

I can’t lie to Ma. She says that people who lie are bad people. I can never lie.

So I nod at her and say, “Yes.”

Ma looks worried. “Oh, Jean…” She gets off the bed, stands up, and walks back and forth in a straight line a few times. “What exactly did you hear?”

I still can’t lie.

“A lot. You said a bad word.”

Ma takes a very deep breath and then says, “Jean, listen to me. Don’t think about anything Grandma and Grandpa said. It’s not true, I swear.”

“So are they lying?”

Ma doesn’t speak again. Instead, she just stares at me, not speaking.

I feel weird when she looks at me like that. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m starting to get sad.

Ma does start speaking again.

“Grandma and Grandpa were… speaking their minds. That’s all. But whatever they said, don’t believe a single word of it. It’s not true.”

Ma kisses my forehead, something she does to tell me that she loves me. She doesn’t have to say it to me. I know.

“Is there something wrong with me? Grandma says that there’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Jean. There never has been and there never will.”

Ma then hugs me. She kisses my forehead again.

I hug Ma back because she needs to know that someone loves her too.

Sometimes Ma gets very sad. She said that she used to get sad all the time.

I don’t know what makes her sad, but when she does feel like that, she starts to cry. She gets onto her bed, lies down, and doesn’t move for a long time.

But she always wakes up in the end. I come into her room, shake her, and she’s awake. Her sad is gone.

Ma stops her hug and lets go of me. I sit on her bed and she joins me. I remember how we used to share a bed when I was smaller.

I miss the small room we were in before, when it was just me and her.

There were other people from other small rooms around us, but I couldn’t talk to them. I just needed Ma, no one else.

Ma drapes the blankets over me and I ask, “Ma, how did I come to you?”

“Hm?”

“You always say that I came to you, but you never tell me now,” I tell her. “Did someone give me to you?”

“Oh. Uh… yes. In a way, yes.””

“Who was it? Was it the sky?”

“No, it wasn’t the sky.”

“Was it the Walls?”

Ma shakes her head, “No, it wasn’t the Walls either. I’ll have to tell you when you’re older, Jean.”

“I’m going to be older soon,” I remind her. “I’m going to be six soon, Ma. Six is older. Why can’t you tell me now? Who gave me to you? Where are they now?”

Ma takes a breath. For a moment, I can see her stopping to think.

Then she speaks.

“You were given to me by someone I loved.”

That’s easier to understand, so I nod and say, “Okay.”

She takes another breath and says:

“When I was younger, I was quite sure that this person loved me back. I loved him so much that I left home for him. I left Grandma and Grandpa to follow him here. But you see, that person already had someone else. He wouldn’t stay with me when I found out he had loved someone else before me. So he left.”

Left?

He left?

He’s gone?

Where did go? Where did he leave to?

“When he was gone, I became very sad. I thought that there was no one who would ever love me again. Then I found you.”

Ma stops speaking for a moment. She stops because she’s starting to smile.

“You were so small, Jeannie. You were just this tiny thing growing in my stomach.”

The story is confusing, but I think I’m starting to get it.

“I’m not that tiny anymore, am I?” I ask. “Did I grow?”

Ma nods, “That’s right. You grew a lot.” She holds her fingers like she’s holding a tiny, invisible object. “You were only this big when I first felt you, Jeannie. _This_ big. That’s little.”

“I’m gonna get bigger!” I declare like I’m a king. I stand up on the bed and start jumping, “I’m gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger!”

“That’s right,” Ma says. “You’re going to get bigger and it’s going to be incredible.”

Ma puts her hands on my shoulder until I stop jumping. I think she’s still afraid that I’m going to fall off the bed. I understand that.

But I still don’t understand the story.

“I’m going to be older next month, Ma. Can you tell me the story again when I’m six? Maybe I can understand it more.”

Ma smiles, nods her head, then says, “Yes. I promise.”

I make my hand into a fist but keep my pinky finger sticking out.

“You swear?”

Ma reaches out and wraps her pinky finger around mine. It’s something that I see other people doing to make sure they keep promises. Ma and I do it sometimes even though I know she always keeps her promises.

“I swear, Jeannie.”

Ma keeps smiling at me, then she does this thing that she always does when we pinky swear where she tugs my hand and pretends to bite my fingers. She never actually does it, so I know she’s just joking. She she still tries because it makes me laugh and squeal.

Everything I know, I know from Ma.

Ma taught me how to walk.

She taught me how to read.

How to draw.

How to dance.

How to sing.

How to talk.

How to listen.

When I don’t understand something, I talk to Ma about it. I don’t understand a lot about the world, so I talk to Ma a lot.

She says that the world is a big place, but I can make it feel small if I really try.

Just focus on one thing, like the sky, or the wind, or her voice, and everything will make sense.

It always does.


End file.
